A customer left the rear wheel of an original R-SYS with me.
While the rear wheel was spinning, a kickstand got caught up in it,
and one spoke broke.
↑This one here
Fixed.
The anodize color differs at both ends,
but since the length matches, it works fine for repair.
This was the last of our "mysteriously stocked R-SYS spare spokes,"
so going forward we won't be able to do spoke replacements for R-SYS at our shop.
Pretty much the same situation applies to Mavic wheels in general.
For Mavic repairs, please take them to a trusted
Mavic wheel dealer in your area.
Just the other day someone called saying "My Cosmic Carbon spoke broke two weeks before a race,
I asked around at various shops but nobody had spokes in stock
and they said it would take over a month—is there anything you can do?"
I told them that if they were planning to go back to genuine spokes later,
I could get it in a usable state as a temporary fix.
Back when ENVE switched over to Mavic,
I got called to a trade show,
and they said that if we wanted to handle Mavic,
we also had to buy apparel (not just jerseys but shoes and helmets too!),
so I turned them down.
I told them "If our shop were to handle Mavic, we'd stock spare spokes
for all the major wheels in circulation in abundant inventory,"
and they said "That's not the kind of business we're looking for,"
and I remember that clearly. Whatever.
As far as I know, even pretty big shops don't stock
spare spokes for the common complete wheelsets in inventory
(which means they can't fix broken spokes same-day),
but at our shop we've actually made that happen for Campagnolo/Fulcrum wheels.
Shimano wheels?
I wrote "common complete wheelsets" for a reason, didn't I.
As for Mavic distributors, if they're going to set yearly quotas anyway,
they should include an obligation to purchase spare spokes
as part of that.
↑For some reason a bunch of spare spokes would probably end up on Yahoo○Auction and Merc○ri
Except for cases like lightweight or disc wheels where "inability to true" is a tradeoff for performance,
I really hate "unrepairable wheels,"
and I think you should give it some thought before buying a wheel
that uses non-standard materials but doesn't have proper spare parts supply.
This is a separate issue from the quality of the product itself.
Though it may be unavoidable in the case of wheels that come stock on complete bikes.
↑The replaced spoke
The original R-SYS spokes are made with carbon fiber
oriented in only one direction (lengthwise),
and the front wheel was subject to a recall,
but the rear wheel isn't recalled because one side has aluminum spokes
and it doesn't fail immediately.
Since it's just lengthwise fibers, it frays apart easily.
For more on this (→here).
While the rear wheel was spinning, a kickstand got caught up in it,
and one spoke broke.
↑This one here
Fixed.
The anodize color differs at both ends,
but since the length matches, it works fine for repair.
This was the last of our "mysteriously stocked R-SYS spare spokes,"
so going forward we won't be able to do spoke replacements for R-SYS at our shop.
Pretty much the same situation applies to Mavic wheels in general.
For Mavic repairs, please take them to a trusted
Mavic wheel dealer in your area.
Just the other day someone called saying "My Cosmic Carbon spoke broke two weeks before a race,
I asked around at various shops but nobody had spokes in stock
and they said it would take over a month—is there anything you can do?"
I told them that if they were planning to go back to genuine spokes later,
I could get it in a usable state as a temporary fix.
Back when ENVE switched over to Mavic,
I got called to a trade show,
and they said that if we wanted to handle Mavic,
we also had to buy apparel (not just jerseys but shoes and helmets too!),
so I turned them down.
I told them "If our shop were to handle Mavic, we'd stock spare spokes
for all the major wheels in circulation in abundant inventory,"
and they said "That's not the kind of business we're looking for,"
and I remember that clearly. Whatever.
As far as I know, even pretty big shops don't stock
spare spokes for the common complete wheelsets in inventory
(which means they can't fix broken spokes same-day),
but at our shop we've actually made that happen for Campagnolo/Fulcrum wheels.
I wrote "common complete wheelsets" for a reason, didn't I.
As for Mavic distributors, if they're going to set yearly quotas anyway,
they should include an obligation to purchase spare spokes
as part of that.
Except for cases like lightweight or disc wheels where "inability to true" is a tradeoff for performance,
I really hate "unrepairable wheels,"
and I think you should give it some thought before buying a wheel
that uses non-standard materials but doesn't have proper spare parts supply.
This is a separate issue from the quality of the product itself.
Though it may be unavoidable in the case of wheels that come stock on complete bikes.
↑The replaced spoke
The original R-SYS spokes are made with carbon fiber
oriented in only one direction (lengthwise),
and the front wheel was subject to a recall,
but the rear wheel isn't recalled because one side has aluminum spokes
and it doesn't fail immediately.
Since it's just lengthwise fibers, it frays apart easily.
For more on this (→here).